HBO has almost always had one show in development that I find myself getting quite excited about, and for the past couple of years my excitement has been focused on their upcoming television adaptation of Michael Crichton's WESTWORLD. The series has been able to gather together one heck of a cast, including Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, James Marsden and many others, but production on the series was halted early this year so the writing team led by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy could catch up on writing the final four episodes.
Deadline now reports that production on Westworld has finally resumed and that they've also welcomed a new cast member. Lili Simmons (Banshee) has joined the cast of Westworld as Abigal, a woman who "works in the park and uses her good looks and charm to lure Westworld guests into the saloon." Simmons isn't a stranger to the wild west as she appeared in the recent BONE TOMAHAWK alongside Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, and Richard Jenkins. There's still no official word on when Westworld will debut but signs seem to point to the show premiering later this year.
For those of you who haven't witnessed the delights of WESTWORLD, the original Michael Crichton film took place in a high-tech amusement park by the name of Delos which consisted of three "worlds," Roman World, Medieval World, and West World, all populated by highly realistic androids. Naturally, the androids broke down and chaos soon ensued. WESTWORLD wasn't particularly deep or dramatic, but it was quite a lot of fun and full of great ideas and imagery; the perfect starting point for this new adaptation which is being described as "a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin."
